Short term gain and long term pain

It´s one of the slightly cynical observations about politics and politicians. That a politician will trade away long term paid in return for a short term gain.

Of course, this isn´t good for the rest of us but it does no end of good for the politician´s ego and career. Looks like we*ve got one of those moments just coming up:

Gordon Brown will diminish Britain’s international role in global financial institutions by increasing European Union representation, as the price for an agreement at the G20 summit.

Brown is simply desperate to make sure that there´s an agreement at this summit. Doesn´t really matter what the agreement is (to continue being cynical), just that there is one that he can trumpet as being his initiative to save the world.

And if the price of that is that we lose yet more of our independence in hte international institutions, well, from Brown´s point of view, so what?

He´s not going to be dealing with that loss of influence in the decades to come, is he?